Michael Marris: Hell-bent on the small picture

Two hedgehogs sluggishly emerging from the hibernation of a cold winter. The two dominant New Zealand party leaders are unfurling their spines in the political sunlight.

The brave new face of consensus politics envisaged by MMP seems, however, to still be dormant. There are only two significant protagonists, National and Labour, and a few minor parties waiting to mop up the crumbs.

There is a prospect that after the general election a kingmaker may need to emerge to form a coalition government. New Zealand First are actively touting themselves around the hustings, particularly into the Grey Power vote.

The fledgling Maori Party is operating way beneath the radar but with the intensity and optimism characteristic of new ideologues.

In the meantime, however, we are offered only two faces of politics in New Zealand.

Both major parties have chosen to spearhead their campaigns with the personality cult of leadership: Helen Clark and Don Brash.

We have these two circling each other, at times carping and at times lugubrious, spines bristling, each trying to inflict maximum personal damage. A campaign characterised by an absence of grace and an absence of graciousness.

Don Brash, colourless and drab and measured, seeking to present himself as a rock of certainty - the classic "safe pair of hands".

Helen Clark, brittle and acerbic, claiming the moral high ground of recent performance. Neither will set your heart aflutter.

In all of this there are two significant missing elements.

First, neither leader has anywhere near the personality or charisma required to captivate a classically lackadaisical populace. Neither can do the great Clinton appeal to the people.

Imagine how the opening phrase "My fellow New Zealanders ... " might sound. On an excitement scale, both leaders would have difficulty even triggering a response.

Second, the New Zealand public has been almost totally marginalised. There is no promotion of a far reaching and visionary policy. There is no focus on what sort of country we want ourselves to be and what sort of place we wish to occupy in the world.

There is no grand vision.

Instead there is an endless succession of minutiae. There is a continual appeal to various sector interest groups.

There is an obsession by each leader with the personality traits of the other. There is a continual stream of (poorly disguised) invective from Clark to Brash and from Brash to Clark.

These are the petty policies of prescriptive politics. Telling us what will happen, not inviting us to share in and embrace a vision for the future.

There is nothing, absolutely nothing, of statesmanship.

As a public, as a nation, we are entitled to expect more.

Our low-calibre political leadership has over the past few years increasingly led to New Zealand being perceived in the global arena as an essentially irrelevant circumstance. A nice place to go for the northern winter. Helpful exchange-rate. Things to see (although not much to do).

We have utterly alienated ourselves from America. While some people would applaud that move, it is disingenuous and ultimately self-defeating in the face of the reality of global politics.

We have sought to ally ourselves with China in an endeavour to boost our trade opportunities. That can only ever be a relationship in which we will always be the bridesmaid.

Politically and socially we have over the past few years moved apart from Australia. No other countries in the world have any particular regard for, or concern about, us.

It is thus disappointing, entering a general election, to now be presented every day with a political barrage of narrow thinking, shallow analysis and limited vision.

As a country we have become increasingly diverse in terms of culture and we have become increasingly aware of the importance of our Maori heritage.

Our politicians could be working to integrate our nation, to pull together the colourful and disparate elements of our community and instil a sense of national pride. Our politicians could be developing the skills of statesmanship, rather than the skills of snake oil hustlers.

The political vision could be external, rather than internal, and we could be finding a niche for ourselves in the global community.

New Zealand has a huge amount to offer the world. There is no longer a tyranny of distance, and despite our small population we have a pool of resources and talents that could have better meaning in a far more global sense.

We look to our leaders to broker our entrance into the international community. Unfortunately, however, they remain looking down at the ground and throwing scraps of fiscal inducement around the countryside in an effort to garner votes.

Our insular and introverted leader aspirants are hell-bent on looking at the small picture with seemingly total unawareness that the wider world offers a much richer tapestry. Paradoxically, the bigger picture could be far more attractive on a vote-inducing basis.

The narrowness of the present attitude is a sad reflection of the narrowness of much political thinking in this country at this time.

Each year we lose, literally, thousands of graduates to overseas pastures. Some return. Many do not. Their vision is wider, more hopeful, more pertinent.

We need a bold vision of our nationhood and future. We need to develop meaningful relationships with the rest of the world. Those are two primary roles of our politicians.

From them we deserve better. We need better.

* Michael Marris is in business as an adviser on governance issues.